Ube halaya is the purple sweet potato dessert you didn't know you needed

Justina Huddleston is an editor and the head writer for TDmonthly Magazine. She has been a freelance writer for several years, though her real passion is cooking. You can see the recipes she creates on her vegan food blog, A Life of Litt...

Learn how to cook ube halaya, the Filipino treat made from purple yams

You may have seen ube, also known as purple yam or purple sweet potato, popping up on trendy food blogs and on Instagram. But this trending tuber has deep roots in the Philippines, where it's a key ingredient in a prized dessert.

The dessert is called ube halaya, and it's a sweet, creamy jam made from grated purple yam.

It has a short ingredient list, but requires lots of elbow grease — the grated yam is heated with milk (coconut, condensed or evaporated can all be used), sugar and sometimes butter and cheese over low heat, then stirred continuously until it's thick enough for the spoon to stand up on its own in the mixture.